The Dayton's Bluff neighborhood profile featured here is taken
from the Ramsey County Historic Site Survey Report.

District 7: Thomas-Dale or Frogtown

Why is Frogtown named Frogtown?

I guess the name is a little odd and
deserves some explanation.
One of the more popular explanations is that Frogtown is an ethnic slur
aimed at the French who first settled this area. There is some historic
truth to this, the area was settled by the French. An early French
landowner, Benjamin Lafond, left his mark on the area by naming Lafond
Avenue after himself. It is even said that some of the surrounding streets
are named for his sons Edmund, Charles and Thomas. Sherburne Avenue may
have once been named Ellen Avenue for his daughter.
Others say that Archbishop John Ireland coined it almost 100 years ago. It
is said that while standing in Calvary Cemetery he looked across a large
section of marshland filled with croaking frogs and said "That sounds
like a frog town" (Pioneer Press 7/28/74.) The land was particularly
marshy and could have contained a high frog population. The
Austro-Hungarians in the area called it Froschburg (frog city.)
Yet another theory I have heard is that the name may have come from the
fact that the couplers on the railroad cars were called "frogs"
and so many railroad workers lived in the area.
I guess we may never really know for sure!

District 7, known historically as Frogtown and officially as
Thomas-Dale, is located northwest of downtown St. Paul in the north
central part of the city. Lexington Parkway bound the district to the
west, Interstate 35 E on the east, University Avenue and a one block
section of Aurora Avenue on the south, and the Burlington Northern
railroad tracks on the north. Although primarily a working and middle
class residential neighborhood it contains a substantial number of
industrial and important business districts.

The Frogtown area is one of St. Paul's few "inner-ring"
neighborhoods, so called because it was settled between the 1860's and the
1880's as the tiny city expanded and settlement spread beyond the limits
of present day downtown. A major impetus to the area's settlement was the
construction of the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, now Burlington
Northern, which was built across the northern edge of present day District
7 in the early 1880's. Minnesota's first successful locomotive run
occurred on these tracks in 1882. That same year the Jackson Street
railroad shops were established at their present site at Jackson Street
and Pennsylvania Avenue near the northeast corner of the district. The
railroad shops, abandoned in the early 1970's, provided employment for
residents of Frogtown and the nearby North End for over one hundred years.
The Jackson Street shops were joined by railroad related industries
established along the same railroad line. The largest and most important
of these was the St. Paul Foundry, built in 1901 on the north side of the
tracks (technically in District 6) near Como and Western Avenues. The
foundry headquarters were at 500 W. Como Avenue. A second set of railroad
shops was built by the Great Northern Railroad (successor to the St. Paul
and Pacific) at the northeast corner of, Dale Street and Minnehaha Avenue
around the turn of the century. The Dale Street shops are still in
operation at 619 W. Minnehaha Avenue.

Residential development of Frogtown followed an east to west pattern as
Poles, Scandinavians, Germans, and Irish found jobs in the railroad shops
and related industries and built closely-sited modest wood frame and brick
houses. The oldest of these, dating from the 1860's and 1870's, are found
south of the Jackson Street Shops along Sherburne, Charles, and Como
Avenues east of Rice Street. Considerable urban renewal has obliterated
much of the early neighborhood. The Historic Sites Survey staff identified
the Greek Revival Henry Morin House at 611 N. Rice Street and the houses
at 536 and 545 N. Park Street and 129 W. Como Avenue as the oldest and
most intact. The staff discovered the streets extending westward between
Rice and Dale Streets are lined with a concentration of working class
housing built primarily in the 1880's. These houses are sited on narrow
lots, with many examples of two small houses built behind one another on
the same lot. They represent many of St. Paul's most important examples of
Victorian working class construction, and many have dog-eared and
segmental arched window

and door openings, brick window hoods, and frilly intact open porches.
Although many of these houses have suffered from insensitive alterations
and neglect, a large number are basically intact.

Much of the residential development west of Dale Street occurred in the
1890's. The Historic Sites Survey identified a number of vernacular
versions of the Queen Anne, Eastlake and Colonial Revival styles, and many
remain basically intact. On streets west of approximately Victoria Street,
the Survey staff discovered houses of slightly later vintage, including
bungalows and one fine Prairie Style house at 516 N. Lexington Parkway.

District 7 contains a large number of churches and schools, most of
which have ethnic origins and many of which are architecturally
significant. Most important is the Church of St. Agnes, which was founded
by German Catholics and was designed by George J. Ries showing the
influence of Middle European Baroque churches. It was built between 1909
and 1912 and stands at 550 W. Lafond Avenue. It is on the National
Register. Other Catholic churches important to the history of the
community include St. Adalbert's Church at 256 Charles, founded by Polish
immigrants and built in 1909-10, accompanied by the neighboring St.
Adalbert's School. St. Vincent's Church at 651 Virginia Street,
constructed in 1889, accompanied by the neighboring St. Vincent's School.
Important Protestant churches identified by the Survey include the
University Avenue Congregational Church at 868 W. Sherburne, designed by
Clarence H. Johnston, Sr. and built in 1909. The Beaux Arts Norwegian
Evangelical Lutheran Church at 105 W. University Avenue. The Gothic
Revival Trinity Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Church at 515 N. Farrington
Street. The Gothic Revival St. Matthew's Lutheran Church at 507 N. Dale
Street.

Commercial development in District 7 was linked historically to the
establishment of streetcar lines, between 1881 and 1906 on University,
Como, and Thomas Avenues, Rice and Dale Streets, and Lexington Parkway.
The busiest of these streetcar routes was the University Avenue line, and
it became St. Paul and Minneapolis' first interurban streetcar line in
1890.

University Avenue remains one of St. Paul's most important commercial
streets. It contains a number of Victorian and turn of the century
commercial buildings, most of which have been altered at street level.
Among the most intact and architecturally interesting are the Ford
Building at 117 W. University Avenue the M. Schott

Building at 935-937 W. University Avenue, and the Victoria Theater at
825 W. University Avenue. See the Survey findings in District 8 for a
discussion of commercial buildings on the south side of University Avenue
between Rice Street and Lexington Parkway, technically in Planning
District 8. Rice and Dale Streets, two additional important business
though-fares, also contain concentrations of late nineteenth and early
twentieth century commercial buildings. These include buildings at
516-518, 520, and 550-552 N. Rice Street and the building at 639 N. Dale
Street. Other basically intact neighborhood commercial buildings, most of
which were built at the intersections of streetcar lines, include the
nearly identical corner blocks at 629 N. Kent Street and 573 N. St. Albans
Street and the buildings at 434-438 W. Lafond Avenue, 500-502 W. Sherburne
Avenue (no. 19), and 720 Western Avenue.

The Historic Sites Survey staff also identified examples of Roadside
Architecture and miscellaneous building types in District 7. These include
the Period Revival gas stations at 631 N. Dale Street and 703 W.
University Avenue; Night Train, a pair of rail road coaches converted into
a bar, at 289 W. Como Avenue; two turn of the century open truss bridges
at the intersection of Como and Western Avenues; the W.P.A.-built
Minnehaha Playground Building at 685 W. Minnehaha Avenue; and the barn at
619 N. Rice Street, one of the largest and most interesting out-buildings
in St. Paul beyond the Historic Hill district.

The Frogtown or Thomas-Dale neighborhood has been largely unappreciated
for its architectural value. This is unfortunate since the area continues
to be one of the city's most intact working class neighborhoods with a
large number of historically and architecturally significant buildings
deserving preservation.

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